US envoy brands EU executive ‘weapon of mass destruction’

By Stewart Fleming

Date: 16/09/04

THE US ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has characterized European Commission bureaucrats as "weapons of mass destruction" in the field of human rights for minorities.

Stephen M. Minikes attacked the EU's failure to take the issues of racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism more seriously.

His remarks were made at a seminar in Brussels on promoting ethnic and religious tolerance in central and eastern Europe.

A top European official present at the event described the remarks as "ill-judged, misguided and stupid" especially coming from the representative of a country "whose president first had to consult his lawyers before deciding how to treat prisoners of war in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib".

A senior non-EU diplomat said they were "outrageous", adding that he would be reporting the event back to his capital.

While Commission officials privately deplored the remarks, officially the European Commission would not comment, in the absence of an official text.

Minikes said European citizens should "lobby in order to make your governments weapons of mass construction in confronting the problems of anti-Semitism and intolerance". He told his audience: "America has a great deal to offer Europe on these issues. It is the only country that calls itself with pride a "melting pot", that has successfully wedded together hundreds of cultures and ethnicities."

He said that the US was looking for action from the EU in the next few weeks.

The litmus test for the EU's commitment would be whether it agreed that a special representative for anti-Semitism should be created in the OSCE.

The US also wants a special representative for racism, xenophobia and discrimination.

The proposals will be considered by ministers from OSCE countries at a meeting to be held on 6-7 December.

Ambassador Minikes said that European governments needed to recognize that the biggest challenges they faced in the years ahead were not about monetary policy, budget deficits or the euro but "immigration and integration" and politicians needed to "wake up to this reality".

Minikes was speaking at an event run by the American Jewish Committee and the Friedrich Naumann Stiftung as a prelude to an OSCE conference in Brussels this week.

Christian Strohal, director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, said that the OSCE should confront issues of racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism as "these phenomena are a danger to security and stability".

"Cooperation to combat them needs to be stepped up," he added. "I do not want to see just tolerance [of minorities] I want to see positive integration and inclusion."

His views were echoed by Beate Winkler, director of the EU's Centre for Monitoring Racism and Xenophobia. "We have to prepare our societies and politicians to cope with the new challenge of migration, which means promoting respect, not just tolerance, and recognising that diversity is linked to innovation," she said.

One human rights expert, commenting on Ambassador Minikes remarks, said that for 45 years America had led the world in the direction of improving human rights and Europe had been happy to follow.

"If, on top of the other issues dividing the US and Europe, we are now going to quarrel about fundamental values, the things which should be uniting the transatlantic democracies, then this is a very serious development," he said.

US ambassador to the OSCE criticizes European Commission policy in the field of human rights for minorities.

Friedrich Naumann Stiftung http://www.fnst.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-705/i.html

American Jewish Committee http://www.ajc.org

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